Place · shifting river channel · India
Tista
Also known as Teesta, Tista, Jamuna, Karatoya, Tista — the 1787 avulsion
In the flood of 1787 the Tista abandoned its old channels toward the Ganges through the Mahananda and Karatoya and cut a new course south-east into the Brahmaputra. It is the best-documented single river capture in South Asia, recorded as it happened in Company revenue and survey papers.
- Date
- 1787 CE
- Function
- Water & infrastructure
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 26.000, 88.900 (approximate)
Worth knowing
The same decade's floods also shifted the Brahmaputra itself from the Old Brahmaputra channel past Mymensingh to its present Jamuna course. Two of the largest rivers in the world changed beds within a few years of each other, and the districts around them had to be resurveyed.
Connections (1)
- Succession in timeBrahmaputra braid & 1950 quake
The Tista's capture in 1787 and the Brahmaputra's shift from the Old Brahmaputra channel to its present Jamuna course happened within the same few years of catastrophic flooding. Two of the largest rivers in the world changed beds almost simultaneously, and the Company had to resurvey the districts around both. Rennell's atlas, drawn just before, is the control.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Teesta River”. James Rennell's Bengal Atlas (1781) compared with later surveys; Kalyan Rudra, Rivers of the Ganga–Brahmaputra–Meghna Delta (2018).
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